Combat viewer - Starting positions

from GalCiv3 Forums

Observation: Starting positions in Tactical Combat don't seem to be related to roles.

Trying to understand starting positions in ship combat. The following is written in Fandom Gal Civ 3 Wiki page under Ship Combat:

"Starting location: Each ship's position at the start of a battle is determined by the ship's role. The higher the starting position number, the more forward the ship will be located"

This does not seem to be the case.

In my fleet I have 3 Medium ships (fourth is a Command ship, role Support). For the Medium class ships two use Beam weapons and one uses Kinetic. The Kinetic ship also has thrusters. For each Medium ship the role is assigned to Capital. According to the Wiki these ships should start in the same position, as they all have the same role. However, when viewing tactical battle, the Kinetic using Medium Capital ship starts way forward compared to the Beam using Medium Capitals. Am I missing something or is this a known bug/feature? Screenshots attached.

Kinetic Medium Capital

Beam Medium Capital

16,679 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Its the thrusters!

Did some testing and it seems that adding thrusters alters the ships combat starting position. In a test game similar ships with role Capital were starting at the same position.  However adding a single thruster to one of the ships did change the starting position for that one ship.

Added this information to the Wiki.

Reply #2 from Stardock.net Forums Top

Quoting Burnfield, reply 1

Its the thrusters!

Did some testing and it seems that adding thrusters alters the ships combat starting position. In a test game similar ships with role Capital were starting at the same position.  However adding a single thruster to one of the ships did change the starting position for that one ship.

Added this information to the Wiki.

Which wiki did you add it to?

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

My memory was that in addition to being role-related, the viewer "plays" until the first shot is fired (or just before?). So I think the thing about roles is at least somewhat true, but the thrusters are a confounding factor.